A fox on the road to sucess
by Waiting ON a wish
Summary: Naruto had tried to pass the academy exam multiple times, maybe there was a reason for his continued defeat. with a little help from his favorit teacher he just might reach his potential, and become the ninja he was always suposed to be. not on the front lines, but hidden in the shadows. warning: Yaoi, male/male, sexual content, smartere Naruto, underaged relationship, new teams.
1. Chapter 1

Ch. 1

Iruka looked at the defeated looking back of his favorite student as he left the exam room. Naruto wasn't his best student, far from it, but he was the one with the most spirit. He just never gave up.

As he let out a sigh he thought about Naruto's chance at becoming a ninja, never mind reaching his dream of becoming Hokage. He only had one more chance at getting his Hitai-ate.

While a child studying to become a ninja could take the exam as many times as they wished, and even become a genin long before their age mates, when they reached the age of 16 without having become a ninja, they were dropped from the program. The same thing happened to those who ended up in the genin-corps, having lost their test to be given a jonin instructor, when they reached the age of 20 without having been promoted to chunin.

As Naruto would turn 15 only a couple of month into the next school year, next year would become his last chance at becoming a ninja.

He really wished there was something he could do to help Naruto; his trouble with the clone jutsu just wasn't logical. He knew that his student had more than enough chakra to form the jutsu, not like some of the others who hadn't passed; they had far too little chakra, and if they couldn't even muster enough chakra to form an E-rank jutsu, they had no place as a ninja. They would only become corpses that way.

The only one he had advocated for to pass the exam, without passing the jutsu part, in his entire career had been Rock Lee. And that had only been because of Might Gai's promise of taking him as his genin and making him a great taijutsu user.

He promised himself to look through Naruto's exams results, to find out how he could help him reach his dream. After all; even though Mizuki had noted the results down as failed (in the written and taijutsu tests) and almost failed (in the weapon test) there had to be something he could do to help his young student overcome his shortcomings.

Yes… he had decided. When he went home he would be taking Naruto's written test with him, to figure out what he needed to teach Naruto, for him to pass the test next year. And, even if he knew that he was skirting the rules, he had some favors owed him by some of the jonins in the village. He would cash in on them to get a little help with instructing Naruto in taijutsu and weapon handling. Now he only needed to figure out _why Naruto couldn't do the clone jutsu_.

He would speak with the hokage tomorrow, he had never had a bad word about Naruto, and he might have an idea of what he was doing wrong in his teaching of his favorite student.

…o0O0o…

That night Iruka was staring bewildered at Naruto's written test. He couldn't find _one single mistake_ … how in the world had Mizuki written this test down as a fail?

Now that he thought of it; Mizuki was the one responsible for teaching taijutsu, and when he last went to Ichiraku with Naruto, he had told him that he knew all of the katas now. But hadn't Mizuki…?

When he hurriedly found the notes for Naruto's exam marks he saw that he had been right.

Mizuki had noted down that Naruto apparently knew none of the katas, and used a highly ineffective style; which looked more like something he had picked up at a bar brawl than an actual taijutsu style.

And now, when he really thought of it, hadn't Naruto been the best shot in his class, apart from Sasuke, for the last half year. How did that match with this score of only 3 hits with shuriken and 4 hits with kunai, none of them bull's eye. There was something wrong.

…o0O0o…

As Iruka speed toward the Hokage tower, Naruto's written test and evaluation clenched in his fist, he heard some very worrying rumors; apparently someone had stolen the forbidden scroll from the Hokage's safe. As his journey continued he heard more and more mentioning of a name that was rather known to him: Uzumaki Naruto.

He adjusted his track, so he now had course toward one of the glades in the surrounding forest very well known to him, and to his old friend Mizuki, instead of the Hokage tower.

He really hoped he was wrong, but just to be sure…

As he came upon the glade, and laid eyes on Naruto, sitting exhausted leaning against a big scroll, his worst fear was confirmed.

Naruto had someway been tricked by Mizuki to steal the forbidden scroll from the Hokage. What story Mizuki had told the three times failed academy student, he didn't know; whatever it was had to be good. Naruto wasn't a genius, far from it, but he was normally too smart to be tricked like that.

As he entered the glade he was discovered by Naruto, now he just hoped that Naruto was willing to tell him what had possessed him to believe that following orders, which resulted in high treason, was a good idea.

…o0O0o…

Iruka sat in the Hokage's office. The only thing stopping him from hitting his own head against the wall was the medic-nin who was bandaging his wounds (he was pretty sure that the result of further hurting himself would be a long talking too from the woman, and he was far too tired to want to spend the rest of his night being admonished for being stupid).

The Hokage had just informed him of something he should have been aware of. Actually he had known it; he had just never connected the dots.

Naruto had far too much chakra compared to his chakra control to be able to perform most E-rank, or even D-rank, jutsu. If his control was compared to someone with, say Sasuke's chakra reserves, he wouldn't even have enough control to do the leaf exercise. The fact that Naruto had even been able to do the other two E-rank jutsus that were needed to pass the exam was a miracle. In fact; how had he done it?

He would need to have a long talk with Naruto tomorrow or… longer than first intended, as he also needed to teach him all the things that Mizuki was supposed to have taught him.

He was pretty sure that Naruto's taijutsu was as bad as Mizuki had described, or someone would have noticed the disproportion between the grade and the actual work during the test. The only thing he was sure of was that it wasn't Naruto's fault, but the fault of the traitor.

He had a week to get Naruto up to par in all that had been neglected… now that he thought of it; how many of his early teachers had been neglecting him too? He would need to make sure that Naruto was secure in all the basic. He at least owed him that… that and a big bowl of ramen; Naruto had after all saved his life, it was the least he could do to feed the bottomless hole he called a student and, hopefully, friend.

Naruto might be 8 years younger than him, but he quite liked the young teen, and hoped they would stay in contact when he was assigned a team. _He might just_ , then he flicked his eyes toward the hokage, hiding a wicked smile, after all once a prankster always a prankster.

…o0O0o…

The next morning, late morning, but as it was before lunch time it was still morning, found Iruka in front of Naruto's apartment door.

He had had to find the address in Naruto's files, as he had never been here before. Something he felt a little ashamed about. After all he had visited the rest of his students homes, even the orphans, and he looked at the peeling and damaged door in front of him, and thought of the road here, which had quite frankly shocked him; he wasn't aware that such kind of living conditions existed in Konoha. If he didn't know better he would say that Naruto lived in a yakuza neighborhood, but as far as he knew; there was no organized crime in Konoha.

He waited a little while, and then knocked again; surely Naruto would still be home, after a night like that he couldn't imagine him not wanting to sleep in. suddenly he heard a crash behind the door, and the tired voice of his student speaking from behind the door, still some distance from it.

"SHIT… coming, coming, just wait a moment and I will be with you." And then in a mumble he knew he wouldn't have been able to hear, had he not been channeling chakra to his ears.

"I hope it's not the damn landlord.. I don't have the money for another rent rise, and I don't want to sleep in the forest again."

Iruka looked around himself once again; he couldn't imagine that Naruto would have any problems paying for this dump out of his allowance from the orphan act. Maybe if he went on a ramen binge every day, he was after all as close to a human black hole as possible, but Iruka knew that, for Naruto, it was a treat to go to Ichiraku, and cup ramen was the cheapest food you could buy… something seemed fishy here.

The door opened, and Iruka got yet another shock. It hadn't been a mountain of empty cups from cup ramen that had fallen, as he had believed. No the floor was filled with mountains of handwritten books and scrolls, a single shadow clone busy with re-stacking the overturned mountain that had fallen on Naruto's way to the door.

Then his eyes fell on Naruto, and it was all he could do not to squeeze him to his chest, yelling _KAWAI_.

Naruto was looking overly cute, standing in the doorway in an oversized red shirt, wearing a nightcap, which looked like some animal was trying to eat his head. It didn't help the overall picture of absolute adorableness that he was using one hand to softly grind out the sleep from his eye.

Iruka lost the fight with himself, and grabbed Naruto, pressing him tightly to his chest, easily avoiding the flailing arms of his captive.

When he finally let go of his young former student, he almost caught him once again, due to his big, confused eyes.

Iruka cleared his throat and made a motion, as if to ask if he could enter. Naruto just looked confused back at him.

"Naruto-kun… may I come in." finally some understanding seemed to seep into the teen's eyes. A hurried nod, and a hand on his arm pulling him in, and Iruka was standing in a room that had; maybe the most books outside the hokage tower or the libraries (primarily the public village one as there was probably more books here than in some of the smaller clan libraries).

"Uhmm… I need to go get on some clothing, can you wait for me in the kitchen." Naruto was pulling lightly on the bottom of his shirt; clearly uncomfortable with being so underdressed, and nearly naked, when he was having a visitor.

Iruka gave a distracted nod, and moved in the direction Naruto had pointed him.

Upon entering the kitchen Iruka was once again surprised. This time not because it didn't fit his expectations, but because it did. There was ramen everywhere. On the dining table he saw the only food in the kitchen which wasn't ramen; a bowl with brown bananas and a couple of really small apples. He thought back on Naruto's mumbling before he opened the door, but didn't want to connect the dots… didn't want to think that his fellow villagers could be so evil and mean toward a poor orphan.

It didn't take long before Naruto entered the kitchen, for once not wearing his customary orange jumpsuit, but rather a gray wife beater and an army green pair of shorts, high lightening his slightly, for a ninja, muscular body. He hurriedly put on a kettle of water, clearly preparing for tea; yet the tea he brought down form the cabinet above him wasn't something you would buy in the shops, but clearly the result of foraging in the forest surrounding Konoha.

"Want a cupa?" at Iruka's slightly stunned nod, he took down two cups. With a quick look into the cabinet; Iruka discovered that it seemed to be all he had, two cups, two bowls and two pairs of chopsticks. It didn't seem like he was used to guests; might explain his rather unusual actions since he opened the door.

…o0O0o…

"So…? What are you doing here Iruka-sensei? I hope you didn't get too hurt last night…! I'm sorry that I just left like that, but I really needed to find out what all that… you know with the Kyuubi… what it meant for me; now and in the future. And I'm really sorry; I should have stayed until I was sure that you were okay and… sorry; shutting up now."

One look at Naruto's ashamed and self-discriminating face, and Iruka was sold. It was only the table between them that stopped Naruto from once again experiencing what it feels like to be Iruka's favorite teddy bear.

"Don't worry Naruto-kun! I wasn't too hurt yesterday, and I'm almost fully healed today." That was a lie, but he was well enough to be able to fake it, that had to count for something.

"I actually came by to talk with you about your test."

"My test? What about it? I mean it doesn't really count for anything now… does it? You're not going to take away my Hitai-ate… are you? Iruka-sensei, I earned it fair and square, it would be really mean for you to take it back now!" Naruto's eyes were almost swimming over due to the thought of him not being a real ninja after all.

"No Naruto-kun, I won't take it from you… as you said you earned it fair and square. Even the Hokage agreed with my assessment, so it is yours to keep."

At Naruto's blinding smile, Iruka couldn't keep from smiling back. With all the bad luck in his life; Naruto deserved some good fortune… which was why he was here.

"Naruto-kun… yesterday after your exam I decided to see what I had done wrong in my teaching of you, as I couldn't understand why you would fail the exam as spectacularly as your assessment showed… and I discovered something."

At Naruto's beseeching look he took a sip of tea and continued.

He was quite ashamed that he hadn't noticed the discrepancies before, and felt that his students failure at passing years ago (maybe not the first time he had tried, but he should have been ready the second), was fully on his shoulders. Mizuki had been his best friend for years. That and he knew about how his hatred for Naruto had never let up; not like his own, which had slowly disappeared until he saw Naruto as nothing else but his beloved student.

"You got a hundred percent on your written test; far from the failed it was marked at, and I have gone over your written test from the earlier years. While they were far from as impressive as the one you did this year, they should all have been given a passed grade…" as he saw Naruto's face become red in anger, he hurried on, as he knew he wouldn't finish if Naruto got a word in edge wise.

"That is not all; from your results this last year, I can only conclude that the records for your weapon test was faked… or did you in fact only hit the target with 3 shuriken and 4 kunai out of 10, none of them in the bull's eye?" at Naruto's silent shake of head, he continued on. At least it seemed like his young former student understood that he needed to stay quiet if he wanted to hear it all.

"Now the next thing is something you will need to work with. Don't worry I will help you all I can, but you need to take your defects in this seriously. Mizuki was your instructor in taijutsu… Mizuki is a traitor. I have good reason to believe that everything he taught you about taijutsu is wrong, if not plain suicidal to use. We will work on that for the next week, but you need to promise me that you will continue working on it after you have been given a jonin sensei. It is an important element for a ninja, and it could kill you if you continue like you are right now."

At Iruka's serious look Naruto swallowed enough of his anger to listen seriously. And when Iruka asked for his promise, he gave a solemn nod, with his hand on his heart. Whenever Iruka sounded like that, you have better sit up and take notice, because it would most likely save your life one day.

Iruka smiled relived at Naruto, and then his face took on a shameful mine. As he continued on; it was done in a shameful tone.

"The last thing is fully my fault. I should have known it, and yet it was only when I mentioned the result of the problem to the Hokage, that I got reminded of what I should always have remembered.

You have almost no chakra control compared to your reserves. That doesn't mean that your control is bad… it is pretty average. What it does mean is; you have uncommonly large reserves, at least for a normal ninja. I was told that it isn't all that unusual among your clan but…"

"Wait, wait, wait… iruka-sensei; I have a clan?" at Naruto's absolutely flummoxed yet deeply hopeful look, he just couldn't be angry at the young teen for interrupting him.

"Yes you do. You belong to the Uzumaki clan of Whirlpool… and before you ask; even if I knew who your parents were, I wouldn't be allowed to tell you.

According to the Hokage your parents had a lot of enemies, and if anyone ever found out who your parents were, they would want to kill you.

The Hokage told me that once you are strong enough to defend yourself; you will be told about them, and get your inheritance."

At Naruto's crushed, yet still hopeful, look Iruka took his hand in between his.

"Oh Naruto-kun… don't worry, I know the Hokage have told you that your parents loved you… and I know that anyone would have been proud of you. Your will of fire burns brightly, and your 'never give up' attitude are something any parent would have been proud of."

Naruto lifted his free hand, and removed the single tear that had escaped during Iruka's words. Then he gave a decisive nod, and smiled sunnily at Iruka. He would do his best to do his parents proud; the parents he would make sure to know of as soon as possible. He just needed to work even harder on getting stronger. The sooner he got strong enough, the sooner he would get to know his parents' names, get to hold what they had left for him… he might even get to see a picture of them.

This was his new goal. While he wouldn't forget about becoming Hokage, his more immediate goal was to become strong enough to see his parents' faces and know their names.

Naruto nodded to Iruka once again, telling him without words to continue what he had been saying, before he got interrupted by Naruto's wish to know where he came from.

"As I was saying; it is not unusual for an Uzumaki to have uncommonly high chakra reserves, and you containing the Kyuubi on top of that have made your chakra reserves even more so. It was a folly to think that you would ever be able to learn the common clone jutsu, at least when your control is less than what a medic-nin would need. I should have had you learn one of the elemental clone jutsu years ago instead.

As a matter of fact; I have no idea how you learned the replacement jutsu and the henge, as they need as little chakra as the clone jutsu… the replacement perhaps, as you learned that one years ago, when your reserves was much smaller, and when you have learned something once it is much easier to maintain that knowledge. But you only fully learned the henge two years ago. At that time you should have had too much chakra compared to your control to be able to learn something that requires so little chakra."

He send Naruto a searching look, hoping that his former student would have some sort of idea about what the reason could be for this confusing conundrum.

Naruto just looked confused at his teacher.

"What do you mean Iruka-sensei? The henge demands almost as much chakra as the shadow clone! Which by the way don't demand nowhere near what the scroll said."

Iruka send him an inquiring look.

"The scroll said that you needed to use half of your chakra to make a shadow clone… but it's more like half a percent of my chakra. I hardly feel the drain!"

They sat in silence for a couple of minutes; Iruka puzzling out the two confusing conundrums he had been given.

"I think… I think that you have much more chakra than I first expected. That half the chakra capacity of a normal jonin is only a half percent of yours… it sounds like chakra control will be one of the things we need to concentrate on the most, and something you will need to focus on for the rest of your life. Your chakra reserves must grow with an alarming haste, considering that only 5 years ago you were able to learn the replacement jutsu without all that much trouble.

But still… the henge shouldn't take that much chakra compared to the replacement or shadow clone jutsu… show me your henge! It seems like I will need to really figure out what you are doing… not wrong, but different. Use all the hand-seals."

Naruto got to his feet, and started going through the hand-seals.

Dog-Boar-Sheep-Dog.

Naruto henged into the mirror picture of Iruka himself.

"I don't understand… that shouldn't have worked! The correct sequence is Dog-Boar-Ram. How in the world you got something functioning, even if it demands much more chakra, out of it I don't know.

At Naruto's chagrined look he raised his hand to ruffle his hair in assurance, forgetting for a moment that it was only an illusion, and that Naruto's head would be much father down. When his hand connected to the illusions head, and proved that there was substance where there should be none, he got a shock.

Soon he was feeling his mirror picture up, letting his hands caress the body, and the weapons connected to the body. He removed one of the kunais from the belt pouch, and it stayed in form, even when not in contact with Naruto.

Iruka couldn't keep in his gasp at this new discovery. It was like a combination of the henge and the shadow clone jutsu.

As he looked up from the weapon in his hand, his eyes fell on the delighted face of his friend… former student… on Naruto, and he couldn't keep from smiling back.

"Naruto… do you know what this means?"

Naruto scratched the back of his henged neck.

"I… did something good?"

Iruka swung an arm around the shoulder on his young student turned twin, and gave him an amazed grin, partly to calm the worried youngster down, partly because he just couldn't keep it in.

"You did something very good! You invented a jutsu that is many times better than the normal illusion technic that the henge is… just imagine; being on an infiltration mission, someone becomes suspicious that you ain't who you said you were, and lies a hand on your head, to check for henge, yet your illusion holds, because it isn't an illusion, it's a transformation."

He gave the figure, looking like himself, beside him a noisy kiss on the cheek, and started fluttering around in the kitchen.

"We need to inform the Hokage so he can write down the jutsu. If it uses as much chakra as you say, it will probably be put in the forbidden scroll…"

At Naruto's reluctant look he calmed down a little; he could understand Naruto's reluctance in making something he had invented, and which he thought the young teen must have used a lot when he tried to get away from his pranks, public knowledge.

"Don't worry, just because the Hokage knows of the jutsu doesn't mean that anyone else will. You can claim it as a clan jutsu, that way no one but those you teach it to is allowed to learn it, at least not in Konoha."

Naruto looked down.

"That's not it… I just really don't want to go out there right now."

Iruka caught his eyes shortly, before they looked down again. Suddenly he felt ashamed. It had only been yesterday, not even 24 hours, since he had been told about his burden… been told why so many of the villagers hated and feared him.

Iruka stopped pulling on the hand he held in his, and took a step closer. At Iruka's sympatric look, Naruto dismissed the transformation; the kunai in Iruka's other hand disappearing with a puff of chakra smoke.

"I'm sorry Naruto… let's just stay in for today… I'm sure the Hokage will be there tomorrow, or whenever you go to deliver your registration papers."

Naruto answered Iruka's hopeful smile with a careful one of his own. At least he didn't have to go out right now. Just the thought of all those hateful glares, especially now, when he knew why they hated him… he couldn't bare it.

They stood in silence for a while; Naruto's hand in Iruka's, and his eyes turned toward the ground, both of them trying to find something to say; as Iruka was unwilling to leave. Suddenly Iruka remembered why he had come. He had promised himself to help Naruto with the things he obviously, or not so obviously, hadn't learned in the academy.

Soon he was busy questioning Naruto on everything from how to survive in the wild, and escape a rope, to how to infiltrate a noble's court.

There wasn't many thing that Naruto knew nothing about, but the number of things he had learned wrong, even if just slightly, was terrifying. If Naruto had went out in the field with this as his basis, no one knowing just how strongly he had been sabotaged, he would have been dead within a year. No matter how much his jonin sensei tried to help him.

And that was only if he was given a jonin instructor who didn't hate him for holding the Kyuubi… he might not even have the willing help of his sensei, either because of him not passing the true genin test, or because of bias toward him.

Iruka needed to help his young friend as much as possible, and he wasn't willing to stop just because he became a genin with his own sensei… the risk of future sabotage was to big.

…o0O0o…

They started from the bottom up, or rather that was Iruka's plan, until they both simultaneously remembered the shadow clone jutsu.

It took a little time to get everything in order, and instruct the different shadow clones, but soon Naruto was busy learning several different things at once.

He was learning tree walking, or in this instance; wall walking.

He was learning how to survive in the wild, only theory for now, but at least the more obvious of his mistakes was removed, and he finally got his questions answered about how to make different snares, how to make a smokeless fire and so on.

He was taught how to make different food than ramen, only from a cookbook, as Iruka was busy teaching the other clones different things, but at least he dared actually trying with someone there to stop him from burning down the apartment, or poisoning himself with the finished food.

An extra clone had been sent out to buy ingredients; wearing Naruto's version of a henge. Something Naruto would never have thought of; but upon discovering just how much he was normally overcharged, he decided that that would be how he shopped from now on.

The disguise also made sure that he wasn't recognized in the streets, sparing him from the hateful looks; that was the original reason for Iruka's suggestion.

Other shadow clones was learning different ways to walk, or reading up on different topics of conversation material; all in the hope that should Naruto need to do an infiltration mission, he wouldn't be discovered due to only knowing how to act, talk and walk like himself.

Naruto was showing a lot of promise in his development of the different masks, and gave Iruka a good idea of who to contact to help his young friend (because by now he demanded the right to call the teen his friend) dwell deeper into the work as an infiltration specialist.

If Naruto was good enough, he would be in much less danger during that kind of missions, due to his fantastic transformation technic. He would do whatever he could to keep Naruto out of direct fights for as long as possible. At least until he was much, much better with his taijutsu.

While his clones were busy doing that; Iruka had started the real Naruto on the academy katas. It didn't take long for Iruka to notice that the style didn't work very well for Naruto, but at least he was un-learning all those damaging stances and moves Mizuki had learned him. Better a style that wasn't a complete fit, than a style that actively damaged the user.

Even if Iruka could get Naruto up to par with his class mates on his own, at a much reduced time, Naruto would have been much farther along in his career hadn't it been for how blind Iruka was toward Mizuki's despicable and traitorous nature. As such he really owed Naruto the best help he could give.

Iruka had decided to contact Gai for taijutsu training; Naruto would at least be able to participate in the early morning training, he didn't know any other jonin who started training as early as Gai, and that would at least give Naruto a couple of hours of taijutsu training a day.

One of the young and newly promoted tokubetsu jōnins of Konoha would be contacted as an instructor in disguises and infiltration. Something he was sure would save Naruto's life one day, in tandem with making his life easier in the village.

He hadn't been ignorant to Naruto's amazement and gratitude, at getting his ingredients at normal price. If he was in any way able to lighten Naruto's burden as the village's jinchūriki, he would do what he could to do so.

…o0O0o…

The next morning Iruka got up ungodly early. He would need to get to Gai before he started his morning training with his protégé Lee, as he didn't want anyone else to butt in before they had reached an agreement. If everything went to plan Naruto would soon get to know Lee, but for now; Iruka didn't have the patience for _two_ yelling, overly awake green beasts of Konoha.

Of course he could have waited until after Gai's customary morning training, as he himself would be more awake and ready for yelling later in the day, but that posed the problem of interference from the mans other genin students. From what he remembered from Hyuuga Neji; he hadnt liked Naruto overly much, and thought him a looser, destined by fate to always be the worst at everything he did; an attitude reinforced by the blatant discrimination by the other teachers in the academy, and maybe even his own tendency to yell at Naruto when he goofed around.

Of course now he knew why Naruto always goofed around during class (as Iruka would have the class for most of the written lessons); Naruto was bored to death. He had learned the material years ago, and even if he hadn't; what was appropriate for ten and eleven years old to learn, was rather childish material for a 13 or 14 years old.

As Iruka stood at the gate to Konoha, waiting for Gai to start his morning run, with a cup of coffee in his hand, he couldn't help but dread the meeting he would be having later in the day. _But one thing at the time_ was his thought, as he saw Gai coming up to the gate.

Even if Gai was used to waking early, and start training almost right away, he wasn't as excitable at this time of the day. Something Iruka found rather lucky.

"Gai-san, may I speak to you" for a moment Gai looked surprised, then he sent Iruka a blinding smile; it seemed like the only reason Gai wasn't full of energy this early, was that there normally wasn't anyone to direct all that energy at. Oh well, he wouldn't hold back his request just because he felt a little freaked out at the glare from Gai's teeth.

"OF COURSE MY YOUTHFULL COALLEGE. WHAT MAY I HELP YOU WITH ON THIS BRIGHT AND YOUTHFULL MORNING?"

The yell almost blew out Iruka's eardrums, and he started to regret waking up early to take care of this; but he was needed elsewhere later, so he would just have to grind his teeth and bare it.

"I would like to call in the favor you owe me. You see; like you once asked me a favor, to get your young student Lee through the academy, I now need a favor to prepare a former student, now turned friend, for his life as a ninja. I am sad and ashamed to say that he has experienced a lot of discrimination, neglegt and sabotage in the academy, and as a result; his taijutsu is downright suicidal to use. I would like for you to instruct him in a complementary taijutsu style, of course not the Goken, as I am well aware that that is your own style, but something that works for him… even if it's just the academy style.

And I thought, if you don't object, that he would get a lot out of joining your morning workout. A result of the sabotage is that he isn't as fit as he could be."

In the beginning Gai looked rater reluctant, as it didn't take him long to figure out what Iruka needed, but when Iruka assured him that he didn't want him to instruct his young friend in Gai's own style, which was reserved for his family line and his student and apprentice Lee, Gai seemed to light up again.

When he heard that Iruka wanted his young friend to take part in his morning training, he was ecstatic. One more youth of Konoha whose flames of youth he could help fan.

At the end of Iruka's little request, turned speech, he grabbed Iruka's hand and pumped it up and down, grinning excitedly at him.

"I WILL FAN YOUR YOUNG FRIENDS FLAMES OF YOUTH UNTIL HE CAN GO AGAINST MY YOUTHFULL STUDENT LEE WITHOUT BREAKING A SINGLE BONE; AND IF I CAN'T DO THAT I WILL BEAT MY ETEARNAL RIVAL KAKASHI IN A NO HOLD BARREL FIGHT, AND IF I CAN'T DO THAT I WILL…"

"That's fine Gai-san, just remember that he will be put on a team of his own this Monday. You will need to make sure that he can fulfill his missions and participate in training with his own team. While I know that your student Lee have become amazingly strong in a rather short time, Naruto won't be able to progress that fast, as he won't be your full time student."

"OF COURSE MY YOUTHFULL COLEAGE, I WILL MAKE SURE THAT HE CAN PARTICIPATE WITH HIS OWN TEAM." Then his head turned toward the side, where a dust cloud was getting closer and closer.

"MY YOUTHFULL STUDENT, ARE YOU READY TO FAN YOUR FLAMES OF YOUTH."

Soon Gai and his student Lee was nothing but dust clouds in the horizon; leaving Iruka with a headache and a half-empty cup of, by now, cold coffee.

Iruka massaged his temple and turned around. He would need to get Naruto up and sent to the Hokage before he could look for the next person he needed to talk to today.

…o0O0o…

After having sent Naruto to the Hokage tower (with assurances that if he just informed the Hokage that he wanted to keep his jutsu as a clan jutsu he wouldn't be forced to inform anyone but the Hokage, who would be writing it into one of the many scrolls hidden in the Hokage safe, about the specifics of the jutsu) Iruka went to one of the many dango places in the village, it was the most popular one for his target, and if he was lucky he wouldn't have to use the next couple of hours looking through the different once.

He wasn't so lucky, but at least he found her in the second one he was looking at.

There she sat, right next to the door; Mitarashi Anko, resident dango fanatic and infiltration specialist.

He took the seat across from her. He would need more than just the favor she owed he; it was a small favor, and what he wanted her to do was rather comprehensive and time consuming, but if he played his cards right, even if he had to promise her a rather massive favor in return, he could get her to do it.

"Hello Iruka-kun, I heard about the little deal you made with Gai-san this morning, what would you need for your young student from little old me?"

Her tone of voice and whole visage said that she didn't want to help, and he understood why; like Naruto she wasn't well liked in the village, and most mothers had told their children to keep away from her. But that would be the reason for why it would work; letting Anko, who normally didn't feel sympathy or compassion toward anyone fell like she was alike to Naruto might be the only way he could get her to willingly spent time with a teenager.

"My young friend is a former student, one who I accedentely let down, one who have been sabotaged at worst and neglected at best by the other teachers at the academy. I think you know him; if not by visage then at least by name…"

At Anko's disinterested look he hurriedly continued.

"His name is Uzumaki Naruto; maybe the only one in the whole village who are more disliked and discriminated than you."

Now she looked interested; not by much, but as long as he had her attention, he could get her on the hook.

"Actually he just discovered something yesterday. When he use a mask, he get his groceries at a fair price, and they aren't actually half rotten… I have him working on walking, talking and acting like different people, but you know me; I never was all that good at the whole espionage and infiltration thing. Sure I can teach him the absolute basis, but have the capability for doing so much more."

Now Anko started to look really interested, although she hid it beneath a tiny layer of disinterest. But he had seen her eyes, there was definitely intrigue there.

"We actually discovered something interesting about his henge. He cant do the regular henge; uses to little chakra, and some asshole taught him the wrong hand seals, but his version is actually better.

It uses a heck load of chakra, and I doubt anyone but him would be able to use it in more than an emergency, but his version is a honest to god transformation."

That made the woman in front of him loose her mask and sit up in attention. No one had ever made a real transformation before.

Sure a lot of people had tried, and there was some very good versions of the henge out there, but a real transformation was more than just a solid illusion, if someone got hit in an area they didn't physically have, they wouldn't feel pain, if it was an illusion, but they would if it was an transformation.

Iruka nodded solemnly to Anko.

"I held his transformed kunai in my hand (it disappeared when he dropped the transformation), and I promise you that he felt my hand connect to his transformed head."

Then he gave Anko a slightly superior, but still beseeching and slightly apologizing look.

"He is with the Hokage right now, getting it written down as a clan jutsu."

But even though Anko looked hopeful, and like she would steal Iruka's young friend if she wasn't given him to train, she was still unwilling to do it for nothing.

Iruka held back a sigh of relief, he didn't care what he had to pay for this favor (not to say that he wouldn't argue no matter what she demanded, he couldn't just give her something, she would realize that it was worth much more to him and take advantage), he was just relieved that she wanted anything to do with Naruto.

"The favor I owe you and free dango every time I teach him, and a favor owed to me." That was her first offer, now he needed to tell her what he was willing to pay.

"The favor you owe me and one plate of free dango every time you teach him."

He expected her to come with another demand, she wasn't known to give in easily, but she surprised him by holding out her hand, diabolic smile stretched over her face.

"Agreed!"

Well that was easy. He just hoped he wouldn't come to regret it.

As he saw Anko leave the store, smile a mile wide on her face and the fingers on one of her hands caressing a kunai; he thought that he might… or at least Naruto would.

…o0O00o…

After his meeting with the Hokage to register his jutsu Naruto did his best to stay out of the public eye for the rest of the week, and as the tutoring he had been informed that he would be getting from two of Iruka's friends wouldn't take place until after his team placement, he found it rather easy (especially as most of his days was spend going over the basis with Iruka in his apartment); but as Saturday came upon them, he knew that he would need to get his picture taken and hand in his ninja registration. And no matter how much he wished for it to be different; he would have to do it as himself.

As Iruka would spend the day going over his last suggestions for team placements, and argue with his colleagues and the Hokage when they didn't agree, he was left to follow his own pursuits for the day, as soon as he had delivered his registration papers to the hokage.

"I am very proud that you have taken your registration serious, and not made a joke out of the picture… quite frankly I expected something like war-paint or for you to pose ridiculously."

The Hokage was smiling happily and proudly at Naruto. It was about time that he grew up, and with him becoming a ninja now it was double important.

Naruto looked a little shifty around; truth be told he had intended to paint his face so he looked a little more scary. Nothing like say kabuki face paint, but something like red eyeliners and strengthening the birthmarks on his face with black paint. But Iruka had sat down with him, and informed him that if a client ever wanted to specifically request him, he would need to look like himself, or they wouldn't be able to recognize him. This was followed by a long speech about how it was important to look professional and grown up on the picture, which wouldn't be retaken until he had reached chunin. But even then, it was the first part that made him agree to take the taking of the picture seriously.

Naruto adopted a serious face and answered his surrogate grandfather (also known as the Hokage of the leaf).

"Of course jiji. Being a ninja is serious business. I have to take things seriously from now on." Then he gave the Hokage a cheeky grin.

"That doesn't mean that I won't pull pranks any more though… they are great training exercises."

The Hokage just laughed well natured; he wouldn't be Naruto without the pranks, and he had seen some much more destructive coping mechanisms of some ninja's. If Naruto could keep his mind stable by pranking the citizens of Konoha, then it was worth the hassle.

As the Hokage opened his mouth to dismiss the young man in front of him, the door banged open and a small figure charged in with the yell of "I'll beat you old man."

In his shock Naruto released a shuriken, which pierced the young boys long red scarf, making him choke and fall over.

Seconds later, while Naruto still sat in shock and the Hokage was rubbing his temples, a man in black, wearing sunglasses came running in after the runt, yelling for 'the honorable grandson'.

"HOW DARE YOU ATTACK ME? DON'T YOU KNOW WHO I AM?" it was the small boy with the overly long scarf who had entered to attack the Hokage. Naruto didn't understand what his problem was; he should be grateful that he had averted his hit from the original target of the boy's neck, upon discovering the age of the attacker. He could easily have killed the young boy, after all; protecting the Hokage was the job of every shinobi of the village.

"DO I LOOK LIKE I CARE YOU SUICIDAL LITTLE BRAT?!" he yelled back while lifting the boy with the back of his shirt, giving him a carefully regulated hit on the head. No reason to actually hurt the kid after all. He then released the stupid child, turned toward the Hokage, and did as Iruka had instructed him to do when there was other people present in the Hokage's office (it was the best he could do, as even Naruto's respect for Iruka couldn't make him act professionally when it was just him and the Hokage, and yes he did know about the ANBU, but as they had been present for most of his life as his guards, he viewed them more like shadows than like fellow ninjas) and bowed to the Hokage.

"Well jiji, gotta go… people to do, ramen to eat. See you later." The black clade man was staring with an open mouth at the disrespectful words to the Hokage, while the young boy was rubbing his smarting head. The Hokage himself almost swallowed his lungful of smoke; he hadnt thought that Naruto was _that_ developed yet… 'people to do' indeed. At least now he knew why Iruka was spending so much time at the young teen's apartment.

He was rather relived at his favorite chunin teacher's restraint; at least he had waited until the youngster's graduation. But then again; Umino Iruka had always been a sticker for the word of the rules, if not the meaning of them. He had to be a little flexible to have become such a good prankster after all.

Naruto just send the harking Hokage a questioning look but, upon not receiving an answer to his unsaid question, he left.

…o0O0o…

Iruka had handed in his recommendation for teams, and while three of them was rather contrary to what most of his colleagues had recommended (he had already had a rather long discussion with them) he was ready to defend his choices.

As the Hokage laid down the last page of the list, he turned toward the young teacher, and asked about them.

"Could you tell me why the last three teams have been recommended as such? I would have expected a Ino-Shika-Cho team as their fathers made such a good one!"

Iruka nodded shortly and started his sales speech.

"While the old Ino-Shika-Cho team was a good one, and have a long list of completed missions as proof, I wouldn't recommend it for this generation. While Shikamaru and Chouji have a strong friendship, and would likely work very well together, it isn't so with Ino. She is domineering and would browbeat her teammates to do things her way, even if that isn't the best way. Furthermore; she has a strong dislike for her father's teammate's sons. Plus I don't think that their talents match up. While it is true that they have the same clan technics as their fathers, the rest of their abilities are much different. Shikaku was willing to be a leader of his team, while Shikamaru just wants to go with the flow, and then there is the fact that Shikamaru strongly dislikes women. Having a mother with such a strong personality have affected Shikamaru much stronger than what could have been expected. He finds women 'troublesome' and want as little to do with them as possible… I wouldn't be surprised if he turned out gay."

The last part was mumbled, but the Hokage still heard it, and send Iruka an amused but still chagrining look, resulting in red ears for the teacher. He cleared his throat and continued.

"While Chouji is a strong fighter like his father, he doesn't have the same flair for ninjutsu, and absolutely no talent for genjutsu, this would again change the working dynamic of the possible Ino- Shika- Cho team. And Ino… Ino is a fangirl, and if she wasn't capable of using her clan technics I wouldn't even recommend her for the 'sure pass' teams. She has no talent in taijutsu, is bad at using throwing weapons and is to outspoken for infiltration missions. She is altogether a bad fit with the boys… but… if we make the teams like this; we will have an infiltration team I believe will become one of the best in Konoha's history, an assult team that, with some training, will be able to take down most jonin, and a capture and interrogation team that could become the new bar for hunter-nins in the village. I really believe in this setup, and just for the record, I believe that more than just the top three will pass, with the right teachers we might even get a 50% pass this year."

The Hokage looked at the team setup once again, spent a couple of minutes going carefully over them, and with a nod he stamped the list APPROVED.

Then he turned toward Iruka once again.

"Now what are your thoughts on jonin teachers for the teams?"

Iruka sent the Hokage a beaming smile, that had been easier than he had feared, and his colleagues had made him think.

"For team one I think that jonin Fujimoto Takashi would…"

…o0O0o…

"HEY KID… stop following me. I've got no money on me so you can stop your wannabe bandit act."

Naruto had had just about enough of the very, _very_ bad stalking going on. He had been followed since he left the Hokage tower, and he was feed up. People was looking weirdly at him, well more weirdly than usual, due to his little shadow, and he really wanted to go home. Something that he couldn't as long as the kid was turning all that attention toward him. He didn't want anyone to know where he lived.

They had figured it out once before, and on his birthday a mob had turned up on his doorstep. It had resulted in him getting introduced to the hospital staff, something he could have been without, and never have missed. But as said before, he wanted to go home.

The kid ignored his words and kept on sneaking after him, and he used those words in the simplest of its uses. The kid was holding a blanket, painted to look like the fence he was standing in front of; a good idea, if he had held it in the right direction. And that was only the last in a long line of bad disguises. Before that there had been a square stone, and a disguise like a grown man, with beard and everything, quite good if you didn't consider that the one wearing the disguise was only 110 cm. it was getting on his nerves.

As he entered one of the many parks of the village, it hurriedly emptied. Where before there had been mothers with their small pre-school age children, there now only was him… him and his embarrassing shadow.

He turned on the spot and yanked on the soft, red scarf that was sticking out of a bush, bringing with it 'the honorable grandson' who had tried to attack the Hokage in his office.

"What do you want kid? You're cramping my style! Don't you have something better to do than follow random ninjas around the village?"

The kid got a sheepish look on his face upon finally getting confronted with his target, then he straightened up, and pointed a finger at Naruto, all the while yelling into his face… eh; stomach.

"TEACH ME!"

Naruto just looked confused at his little wannabe student… what in the world did he want him to teach him? Just as he opened his mouth to ask this, in his mind, quite reasonable question, he was interrupted by the kid again. At least he had stopped yelling.

"You have to be a really strong ninja for grandad to have called you in to defend him from me… I want you to teach me, so I can become strong enough to take down my grandfather… so teach me."

Naruto spent a couple of seconds looking weirdly at the noisy little brat, before asking the obvious question.

"Why do you want to beat the Hokage…? Your own grandfather at that"

Naruto had expected the kid to want a playmate or something like that, not a teacher that would make him the strongest in the village. Not to mention why did he chose Naruto for that? It was rather well known in the village that he had had the dead last placement in his class, and even if he had been the rookie of the year; he wasn't even a real genin yet, you would think that the kid would have chosen a jonin or something like that. Anyway he already had a teacher, or nanny, it was hard to tell what that weird sunglass wearing man had been.

Suddenly the little kid looked really down.

"No one ever calls me by my name… it's always 'honorable grandson this' 'honorable grandson that' never Konohamaru… I want to become the Hokage so everyone will see me, not the shadow of my granddad."

Naruto slowly raised an arm, moving it toward the boys head, and hit him with his clenched fist.

"Ow…"

"You idiot… you don't become the Hokage by bringing down the Hokage in a sneak attack, if that was the case I would be the Hokage by now. The Hokage is the strongest ninja in the village; you would have to prove that in a scheduled fight, even then… just proving that you are stronger won't make you the Hokage. The Hokage is smart, he have to be to take care of all of the politics that comes with the position, and there's no way you will ever become the Hokage with an attitude like that! Being Hokage is being the greatest servant of the entire village. You serve the people, and even then; do you hear anyone call the Hokage by name? You would just change out one title for another.

Who is teaching you this shit?"

"But Ebisu-sensei told me that he would teach me the shortcut to becoming the Hokage."

Konohamaru's voice was whiny and his eyes a little watery. Apparently no one had ever told him what being the Hokage meant.

"Shortcut… SHORTCUT; there is no shortcut to becoming the Hokage. Everyone in the village have to trust the Hokage to be doing what is best for everyone… he is sending people out on suicide missions and writing the laws… would you trust some snot-nosed brat to send you on a mission you didn't know if you would return from…? To lead you in war? Shortcut indeed.

I think I will be having a talk with jiji about your teacher… if that is the kind of things he is teaching you, you will never become a ninja, never mind Hokage."

At Konohamaru's shocked face he explained.

"If you take the easy way out when you train to become a ninja, others will explore the weaknesses that come forth by not training with all your heart. For example; if you use chakra to boost your speed while training, instead of say weights; what will you do when you run out of chakra doing a fight, or when you run from an enemy much stronger than you? It would mean your death, and no teacher at the academy would ever let someone using shortcuts become a ninja."

By now Konohamaru had a look of understanding on his face, which soon turned into anger, then sorrow.

"But how am I getting anyone to recognize me then?"

This time, when Naruto lifted his hand toward the young boy's head, it was to ruffle his hair. He had been in that position himself… hell if it hadn't been for Iruka he would still be there. Apparently you didn't have to be hated and feared to be overlooked and your existence to be ignored.

"Tell you what _Konohamaru_ I'll teach you a couple of things; it isn't a shortcut, because you will have to train in them often, but it's an aid… an aid to become the strong ninja I know you can become… after all; you're Sarutobi Konohamaru."

The smile Naruto gave was matched and overcome by the one on Konohamaru's face. Finally someone who saw him… him and not his grandfather's shadow.

…o0O0o…

That evening, when Iruka and Naruto was finished eating (a stir-fry as they were saving Ichiraku for after Naruto's team placement), Iruka turned toward Naruto and looked at him, really looked, and saw a young man ready to become a ninja. He hadn't seen that before, so he had held back on his advice, but now he could see it, and as such he decided to help his young friend reach his dream.

"You know; there is one more test you will have to pass to become a jonin track genin!"

Naruto's suspicious look was understandable, he had after all just been cheated by Mizuki into almost committing treason, but still; it hurt.

"Your jonin-sensei will give you a test… the tests are different, but will all test for the same thing; what is the thing that was taught as being the most important thing for a ninja of the leaf in the academy."

At Naruto's questioning look Iruka smiled in apology.

"Sorry; I'm skirting the rules as it is… I'm not allowed to tell you what the test is about… doesn't mean I can't help you though."

After Naruto had sat thinking for a couple of minutes, still not giving an answer, or even a shot at one, Iruka decided to be a little more specific. He just needed to tell Naruto not to mention his help to anyone.

"It was either mentioned or outright told in every single lesson, be they in theory or praxis."

That was apparently what Naruto needed to find the answer, as he yelled it out, with a triumphant look.

"TEAMWORK… everything can be achieved with teamwork."

Then he sent Iruka a questioning look, to see if he got it right.

Iruka was smiling, but he had to held his head back from nodding in agreement.

"Sorry Naruto; I can't tell you if you are right or wrong… I have helped as much as I can; now the rest is up to you."

Then he got to his feet, it had gotten late already, he had to get home; they both had to be up early tomorrow.

"Good luck tomorrow Naruto, and remember that you have to meet with Gai-san at the gate at four am, and that you have a meeting with Anko as soon as you have finished your first team meeting."

On the way out he reminded the younger man that he shouldn't tell anyone about the help he had gotten from Iruka, as while he had held to the words of the rules, he hadn't really kept to the spirit of them.

He didn't really think he would get into trouble, as the Hokage knew how he operated, but better safe than sorry.

As they parted in the doorway, Iruka let a hand softly caress the chin of his young friend. Silently and out loud he once again wished him good luck with his team. At least Iruka had done what he could to maximize the possibility for Naruto to get a jonin-sensei, and a team he could work with.

Only the future would show.


	2. Chapter 2

Ch. 2

Naruto sat next to Sakura, who sat next to Sasuke.

Iruka hadn't only taught him the teachings from the academy he had missed or been taught wrong, he had also been teaching him about human interactions. Apparently being a boy and wanting to be friends with a girl didn't mean (contrary to what the silver haired dog-masked ANBU, who had been his primary shadow when he was younger, had told him), that he wanted to be her boyfriend.

To further clear it up; Iruka had asked him if he wanted to kiss Sakura.

Eew. Even with the squeezing of Sasuke-teme's lips with his own (NOT A KISS) that had happened minutes prior, he would still prefer to kiss a boy rather than a girl. Girls didn't exactly have cooties, like the other boys had told him on the playground when he was younger, before their parents had taken them away, but how anyone would want to get that close to someone who smelt that unnaturally of flowers and candy, and would grow up to be so squeeze, he didn't know.

When he had told Iruka that he would rather kiss him than Sakura, Iruka had looked a little flushed, but had continued his explanation, and further told him that what he had been doing to Sakura could be classified as harassment. He had felt really bad after that explanation; but when Iruka had continued and told him that what Sakura did to him was called abuse, and explained exactly why abuse was bad, he had lost most of that bad feeling.

Still; when all the girls had been fighting to be the one who sat next to Sasuke, he had tried to find out what was so special about the brooding bastard; leading to the 'looks-like-a-kiss-but-was-a-hit-with-lips-on-lips' thing that had just happened. And as a result he now sat nursing his bruises from the collective beating most of the girls in the class had given him. Not that it really hurt; the girls in the class were _really_ weak.

Finally it seemed like Iruka had finished with his speech. It wasn't a bad speech, and he should probably have payed attention, but he had heard it like 6 times… Iruka had gone over it multiple times in his apartment, whenever he had been over to help him get ready for life as a ninja.

According to Iruka there was still a lot of stuff he needed to go over, and a lot of things he needed to relearn from scratch, but the most important things had been corrected, and they still had time before he was sent out of the village on missions. He couldn't quite imagine what kind of missions could be done while _in_ the village, but Iruka had just smiled, rather diabolic, when he asked, so he was a little worried. Not a lot, but enough so that he wasn't quite looking forward to it.

But even if the missions sucked, he wouldn't complain… at least not until after Iruka had decided that he had learned enough not to get killed as soon as he stepped out of the village.

Iruka had also told him about the quite real dangers he was facing by becoming a ninja. And it wasn't only while he was on active duty. When he became known enough he run the danger of assassination attempts when he was relaxing in the village, of his future family getting killed or kidnapped by enemies who wanted to hurt him, even by attacks on the village by other villages. And he wasn't even rid of the danger when he stopped being an active ninja. No he would always be on call to do his duty and defend the village should it ever be under attack, especially during war. Even if he had lost a leg, or something like that.

When it was spelled out like that; it was actually a really dangerous road for him to take. But when he asked Iruka whether he should stop being a ninja, and just become a civilian, he was told that he, as the village's jinchūriki, didn't have a choice. He would become a weapon of Konoha either way; becoming a ninja of the leaf was just the more humane way to do it.

When he asked what Iruka meant, he was told that the Hokage had confessed that there were forces inside the village that had campaigned for him to be put in a program called root, where he would have been stripped of individuality and be taught to obey orders _no matter what_. It was a quite harrowing picture that had been painted, and he was suddenly very grateful for what the Hokage had done for him. From putting him in an apartment when the orphanage had thrown him out, and letting him have the ANBU to communicate with, when they guarded him, when no others would talk to him, to stopping him from becoming an unfeeling weapon.

Iruka started to read out the team placements, making Naruto pay full attention.

It was another of those things Iruka had informed him about; be aware of who your comrades are, so you can't get tricked by enemies.

Plus he really wanted to know who his teammates were, and what team he would be on.

"… on team seven we have Nara Shikamaru, Aburame Shino and Uzumaki Naruto, under jonin Hatake Kakashi."

Suddenly the room was filled with noise. It wasn't loud, but most people were whispering with the ones next to them. From what Naruto could understand; everyone, the three involved included, had expected for Ino, Shikamaru and Chouji to be on a team together, something to do with their fathers.

Naruto didn't quite understand. He thought it would have been illogical to put the three of them on a team together; Ino really didn't work well with the guys.

Another thing that made people talk was the fact that there was no girl on the team. Apparently there had, for as long as Konoha had existed, been one girl and two boys on every team. What made it double weird was that the numbers fit. There was the double amount of boys as girls who had graduated, so there should have been a girl on their team.

Not that Naruto cared. He was happy that there weren't any girls on his team, and he was happy for his teammates.

Sure Shikamaru would sleep the day away if he didn't get motivated to do something. But Naruto had made an art out of finding ways to motivate Shikamaru a long time ago.

And Shino talked weird and was a live hive for chakra eating beetles; but hey, he had learned to understand the thing he named Shino-speech during their times playing hooky and playing pranks. Sure you didn't normally notice that Shino was there, but he was one of the very, very few who had never feared or disliked him. And concerning the beetles; well he had a giant village destroying monster inside of him. Much less helpful than the kikaichū inside of Shino, plus it wasn't like they were any danger to him… he had way to much chakra for one Aburame to be able to empty him more than a couple of percent.

As the class started to calm down again, but did not quiet fully, Iruka used his Big head no jutsu, to make them shut up and pay attention. It worked and he continued.

"Team 8 is Haruno Sakura, Hyuuga Hinata and Yamanaka Ino under jonin Yūhi Kurenai." The whispering started up again, but this time Iruka was quick to make them calm down, or at least be quiet.

"Team 9 are still in action, so the next team will be team 10, team 10 will be Inuzuka Kiba, Akimichi Chōji and Uchiha Sasuka under jonin Sarutobi Asuma."

Iruka rolled the paper he was holding up, and took a quick look through the classroom, the only dissatisfaction he could see, was all of the girls looking disappointed at Sasuke; likely unhappy with the fact that they weren't on his team, yet happy that none of the other girls had a leg up by being there themselves… no that wasn't true; Hinata was looking at Naruto with the same disappointment the rest was giving at the thought of not being at Sasuke's team. He had got a little confused due to Sasuke and Naruto sitting at the same table, therefore in the same direction from Hinata.

Iruka gave a short snort, and nodded back to Sasuke, who was giving him a nod and a slight (almost not there) smile in thanks for dodging the bullet of a female teammate. Then he straightened up to deliver the last message he would be given this class; silently wishing them luck in their choosen careere, and, although unlikely, long lives.

"your jonin-senseis will be collecting you after lunch, you have one hour before you are expected back here; may I suggest you spend it getting to know your teammates."

With those words he left the classroom, followed by most of the class.

Naruto hurriedly grabbed both of his teammates, and started to tow them after him. At Shikamaru's protests he informed them that he had information to share, and that they would be eating Ichiraku ramen for lunch. He was even willing to pay. (After all, due to Iruka's idea of shopping wearing the transformation jutsu, he now had a lot more money, even if it had only been a week. There was a reason he had been forced to supplement his food with what he could forage in the forest.)

…o0O0o…

When both Shikamaru and Shino had a bowl of ramen in front of them, Naruto had five, Shikamaru asked, though not before Naruto had yelled itadakimatsu and had broken his chopsticks, with a low 'troublesome'.

"So what was it you needed to inform us about?"

Naruto swallowed his mouthful, looking a little worried, and with a watchful look around him, something that didn't escape the notice of his new teammates, he answered… or rather let loose a stream of consciousness.

"What I'm about to tell you, you can't tell anyone. It's supposed to be a secret and I can't tell you where I heard it from… and it's not like I was told, I had to guess most of it, and he couldn't even tell me if I was right without breaking the rules, but I'm pretty sure I'm right, because he looked really satisfied when I told him my guess… but still I know we're not supposed to know because of the whole 'secret test' thing and…"

"Okay Naruto you need to slow down… what test are you talking about and what secret are we supposed to keep?"

Naruto took a deep breath, and another mouthful of ramen; letting the ramen get soggy was just a sin, and after the short break he tried to explain.

"I'm talking about the real genin test… I know what it's supposed to be about; what we have to prove we can do!"

"That is quite unneeded, why; because we have already passed the genin test."

Shino apparently thought this was as much a waste of time as Shikamaru, but at least the food was good and free.

"no, no, no… you don't understand; we have taken the graduation test… now we need to take the test to become jonin track genins, or we will just be put in the genin corps… didn't any of your parents tell you about that? I thought they would, considering the fact that they went through the same thing."

His two teammates, placed on either side of him, shared a look. Then in tandem they shook their heads; now looking intrigued, or at least given off that air, as Shino was mostly covered and Shikamaru had his face in one of his hands, leaning it on the counter.

"We have to take some test the jonin put together… its different from jonin to jonin, but they all have one thing in common; we have to show teamwork to pass."

His two teammates didn't look all that surprised about the revelation, after all; the academy had always put focus on the importance of teamwork.

"I think… I think that Hatake-sensei will try to set us up against each other… try to trick us… I know that it isn't all that surprising, but apparently only about thirty three percent usually pass the test, so I thought I better inform you… I'm pretty sure we pass or fail as a team, so…"

With a bowed head Naruto returned to his ramen. He had kind of hoped that they would be happy for him going out of his way to help them pass, even if he primarily did it to help himself.

Suddenly he felt a hand on his head, slowly, almost lethargic, rustling his hear. At the same time he noticed a Kikaichū crawling on his hand. He almost shock it off, until he remembered what an Aburame would place a female Kikaichū on those they cared for, to be able to always find them, or be notified if they were in any danger or had been harmed, if they had been outside of the Kikaichū's communications range.

With a soft smile he continued eating, after the short break to notice the care from his two teammates, happy in the knowledge that he had done good.

…o0O0o…

The newly formed team seven had been sitting, waiting for their new sensei and team leader, for over an hour after the last of the other groups, team ten, had left the classroom.

That is not to say that they were bored.

Shikamaru was catching up on missing sleep; apparently he either stayed up all night, or really needed a lot of sleep. Naruto was kind of hoping it was the first, as the last could be kind of dangerous for a ninja.

Shino was communicating with his beetles; exactly what they were telling him Naruto wouldn't be able to say, but it must have been interesting as he was rather consumed by the activity.

Naruto had, to the surprise of his teammates, brought a book, and was about half way through it. It was apparently as engaging as Shino's communication with his bugs, as he hadn't let it go or looked up even once.

Suddenly he put the book down, and with a rather naughty smile he rose, and started to rig up some kind of trap; which involved a lot of wire, the calk eraser, which looked like it hadn't been cleaned for a long while, a box of firework, though it looked like it was only the small once which did nothing but make sound, and a bucket full of some yellow goop; maybe paint.

His teammates were so interested in what he was doing, that they had stopped their own activity. How Shikamaru had awoken from the small noise of Naruto putting down his book was a mystery, but awake he was, and rather interested in what Naruto was doing.

As soon as he had finished rigging his trap up, he returned to his seat, picking up his book again.

Shikamaru was about to lay down his head again, as the activity apparently was over, but before he could do more than close his eyes, they were forced open by the suspense of someone opening the door. The door opened inwards, and as soon as it was open enough; the eraser stuck the head of the tall, mask wearing, silver haired man. The shock at getting hit by something, for the first time in a long while, and at a place where he should feel safe, combined with the sudden explosions from just behind the door, made him release the door; which was forced open, by the force of the counterweight; a chair which had been stopped from falling over due to the pulley, and the final part of the trap hit their new jonin-sensei: the bucket full of the yellow… stuff (which could be paint, or could be something entirely different. The color matched but the consistency was wrong).

There was silence for three heartbeats, then a snicker sounded; not from Naruto as expected, but from Shino.

Their jonin-sensei was absolutely covered in yellow goop and calk, and as the final firework gave its last, belated bang, he made another little jump.

Naruto was just sitting; staring. He hadn't expected it to work; this was a jonin, and if he was right about the glimpse he had seen of his hair, before the trap had been executed, former ANBU. It shouldn't have worked.

Shikamaru closed his mouth, and then, because while it had been relaxing to sleep while they waited, he didn't want to be kept waiting every day, he opened his mouth again.

"Well that wouldn't have happened if you had come at the appointed time… unfortunately Naruto is rather hard to reign in, so if you don't want similar episodes; I'm afraid you will have to change your habit."

He too had recognized the jonin. He hadn't known him by name, but his father had once pointed him out, and told him that the jonin with silver hair would always be at least an hour late for any appointment; three if he could get away with it, and to bring a pillow if he ever was called to a meeting together with him, as he would be waiting on him, he was that important.

The jonin gave all three of them the stink eye, and after removing a handful of goop from his mask he told them to meet him at the roof, whereupon he disappeared in a shunshin with yellow tainted leafs.

The team took their time to get to the roof; so as to give their sensei time to get rid of the yellow goop, and when they entered the roof; he was sitting, staring at them, free from yellow paint and calk.

He still gave them the evil eye though.

"Sit!"

The three teammates sat side by side. Their sensei had finally stopped looking hateful at them. Not even Naruto was given a look of dislike; even though for once he deserved it.

"Why don't you present yourself…? Name, likes, dislikes, hobbies and dreams for the future…!"

The three boys looked at each other, and then Shino, who was sitting to the left, gave a nod and started.

"My name is Aburame Shino, I like beetles and to sit quietly and read, I dislike those who kill insects, arachnids and lightning, my hobby is to study different insects and to train with my Kikaichū and my dream is to discover new species of insects that will be useful to my clan."

Their new sensei nodded once at him, and turned his eyes on Naruto, who was sitting in the middle. Naruto was still in shock that his trap had worked, but tried to put some enthusiasm in his presentation.

"My name is Uzumaki Naruto, I love ramen, especially from Ichiraku, my pet plant Ukki and Iruka-sensei, I hate rats – they taste urk, and those who can't differentiate the sealing scroll from what's within it, my hobbies are training and pranks, my dreams are to become Hokage and…mumble, mumble."

His team was looking rather shocked at him by now; why in the world had he thought it would be a good idea to eat a rat? After a short moment of stunned silence, their sensei decided to ask for a clarification of the last part.

"What was your last dream? I couldn't quite hear you!"

Naruto took a deep breath and repeated.

"My dreams are to become Hokage… and to find someone who loves me."

It was hardly more than a whisper, but at least they could hear it when they listened closely. To think that the class dope and unrepentant master prankster of Konoha felt so lonely that one of his greatest dreams, because it had to be a big dream for it to be mentioned together with his until now believed biggest dream; to become Hokage, was to fell loved.

The rest of his team, their sensei included, felt rather chagrined that someone they should have included, and taken care of, felt so isolated.

Right there Shino and Shikamaru decided to never turn down an offer for ramen again, and to invite their teammate to visit their homes. The part about sealing scrolls threw them a little, but they both, individually, decided to keep their eyes and ears about them; their sensei hadn't been surprised at that part, so it had to mean something. Shino at least felt some kind of connection with Naruto, even if he didn't know what he contained (as he was able to get at least that much from what Naruto was saying); being a living hive for Kikaichū made him understand where Naruto was coming from, as he was often pushed away in fear and disgust, due to what he contained.

Finally, after yet another short, stunned break; to take in what Naruto had said, they all turned toward Shikamaru, for his introduction.

"Troublesome… my name is Nara Shikamaru and my likes are clouds, sleeping and hanging out with my friends when we skip classes together." This was said with a nod towards a beaming Naruto and the quietly satisfied Shino.

"My dislikes are my mom, when she won't let me sleep, rainy days and Ino. My hobbies are shogi and go and to look at the clouds drifting in the wind, and my dreams for the future is to live to become old!"

When they heard his dream they all nodded in agreement, that was a pretty lofty, considering their career, but good goal.

As one the three genins turned toward their teacher.

When he just sent them an eye smile Naruto said, in a quite serious voice, surprising all of them.

"We have opened up in your presence, the least you could do is to do the same!"

When the rest of the team turned their serious small faces at him, he couldn't make himself make the half-assed introduction he had planned. Naruto was right; they had opened up, even though he was a stranger. They had trusted that they could place their ambitions in his hands, without getting laughed at. And that was exactly what it would be if he continued as planned; a scornful laugh in their face.

So he shifted slightly, and told them the truth.

"My name is Hatake Kakashi, call me Kakashi-sensei, and my likes are the Icha Icha series, my summons and free food. I dislike loud noises and strong smells, and those who would hinder Jaraya-sama's great work, and my hobbies are to read, come up with stupid excuses for being late, and to communicate with the dead when I sit at the memorial stone. My dream for the future… to never ever lose a teammate again."

They could hear the seriousness in his voice all though his introduction. He was telling them the truth.

"Now while I normally wouldn't be telling you any of this, you are ninja now, and I have to believe that my fellow ninja of the leaf are capable of protecting sensitive information. To make sure you understand; none of you are allowed to tell any of what you heard today to anyone else, of course with the exception of the names. Information is sensitive in the ninja-world, and any information can be used as a weapon, either to impersonate someone or to hurt someone directly…"

Then Kakashi clapped his hands together and send them another eye smile.

"Now I am going to tell you what you will be doing tomorrow… we will be having survival training… you against me. And I'm sure this is going to freak you out; but it will be a test… normally 33% of the graduates will pass, the rest will be sent to the genin corps."

At their total lack of surprise he stuck out his bottom lip lightly, underneath his mask, but continued on.

"We will meet at training ground 3 at 5am and I recommend you don't eat breakfast, as you will throw up otherwise. Good luck."

And then he disappeared in yet another shunshin. Or at least he made it look like that. In truth he used a genjutsu, and hid to spy on his cute wannabe genins.

"Troublesome… Naruto remember to eat breakfast tomorrow, and better take a couple of energy bars with you. If you do throw up you don't want it to be on an empty stomach, and you will need the bars to give you back your energy afterwards… I know how much you can eat."

Naruto did a salute to Shikamaru, signaling that he had understood and would obey, but when he looked toward Shikamaru, he noticed the suns placement.

"Shiiit, I'm late… I was supposed to meet Anko-sensei as soon as we finished our team meeting… she must have expected me over an hour ago."

With a wave of goodbye to his two teammates he run through the doorway, setting course, as fast as he could, toward the dango shop he had been informed he would be meeting his new sensei in. The exhaustion from this morning's training with Gai and Lee long out of his body.

"Troublesome" but it was said with a little smile, and both Shikamaru himself and Shino knew he didn't mean it… the sunny blond might be full of energy, but he was far from troublesome.

…o0O0o…

The bell test wasn't quite what they had expected, even though it held all the elements they had expected; a teamwork test, as there really was no way for any of them to get a bell without working together, and a try from the jonin side to put them against each other, as there only was two bells.

After the yell of 'begin' they had jointly jumped away, and were now hiding together a little way into the trees surrounding the clearing that held their possible teacher and the goal of the mission, the two bells.

Shikamaru speculated that if all of them were jointly holding at least one of the bells when the alarm sounded, they would have passed, so the goal was to secure at least one of the bells. But how were they going to do it?

None of them held any illusions that he wouldn't know even more about Shino and Shikamaru's clan jutsus than they themselves did, as they were only starting their training in them, and Kakashi likely had worked with, if not their parents, then their clan members, before.

They had a slight hope that he didn't know about Naruto's shadow clones, or any other specialty, not clan related, they had, but they couldn't depend on that.

The only chance they had of completing the mission, and not get sent to the genin corps, was to fight smart. Kakashi was after all a jonin, and if Naruto had guessed right, former ANBU, and they were just fresh out of the academy genins. All they had on him was numbers.

When they had their plan ready Naruto created and dispelled a clone, thereby sending the signal to the clone they had posted as lookout to dispel.

The information Naruto got back from the dispelled sentinel was puzzling.

Kakashi was just standing in the middle of the clearing, reading a book of all things. Maybe it was the famed Icha Icha they had been told about the day before.

Upon the description of the book being given, Shino actually got visibly red in the face, but refused to tell why. Only saying that it was not a book any of them would be allowed to read, as its content was for only those above 18.

While that information confused Naruto, it apparently meant something to Shikamaru, as his cheeks also got a slight duster of red.

Shaking the unimportant information from their minds, they started their plan.

Three shadow clones, two of them henged to respectively Shino and Shikamaru, were sent off. Meanwhile the three originals spread out. They had plans with backups, and backups to the backup plans and so forth. With everything they had plans labeled from plan A to plan V, and a number of corrections to each plans, depending on the situation, labeled with numbers.

As such they would start out with Plan A, and depending on their sensei's reaction to the teams of decoys they had sent in, they would use sub-plan 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6.

Shikamaru, upon discovering just how many plans that made, had been rather worried for whether Naruto would be able to remember the many different plans, and their designations. But Naruto hadnt been worried at all; it kind of reminded him of the planning he had to do when he wanted to hit either the ANBU's or a really visible target, with his pranks.

The actual execution went something like this:

…o0O0o…

His three students flew out from the surrounding trees, running at him with what appeared to be full speed (he would have to train them in that, they were far to slow), and as they came within striking distance (not that he couldn't have hit them before, but he was downscaling his power to high chunin level) of his weapons, Shikamaru seemed to almost get hit, when he used kawarimi to replace himself with a branch, lying behind Kakashi himself, quickly followed by similar replacements with the surrounding foliage from his teammates.

The genins kept replacing themselves, sometimes to get closer, sometimes getting father away. There seemed to be no system to where they replaced themselves too, it was just a big mess of appearing and disappearing genins; actually succeeding in confusing Kakashi.

Suddenly kikaichū rose from the ground all around him, making him retreat from the center of the clearing, where he had been holding his placement, pushing him closer to the tree-line, and its shadows.

Being attacked from both the clones, which he legitimately thought to be his students, and the stream of kikaichū, he saw no other solution, unless he wanted to actually damage Shino's hive, which he could have done with just a couple of fire jutsus, but to get near the Nara's favored element, the shadows.

He kept a close eye on what he thought to be Shikamaru, and was ready to overwhelm his student with weapon attacks, should he get close enough to take advantage of the close by shadows.

But Shikamaru seemed too far away, he was the one furthest away, to be able to catch him in his shadow attack, at least without him noticing.

Suddenly he saw the shadow behind him stretch; he jumped away, although a confused look to what looked to be his shadow using student, showed that the attack hadn't come from him. Maybe they were using henge!

As one his three students jumped back, all standing out in the sun, and started to attack him with an overwhelming number of projectile weapons.

Keeping to his decided level of abilities, he jumped back once again, but kept moving, so as not to be caught in the shadows. As he landed on a tree branch, high above the ground, one of the thrown weapons went wide. He heard the sound of a cut wire, and succeeded, due to a sudden burst of speed, in clearing the target area for the trap. The branch he had just been standing on was littered with weapons.

Another 'twing ' was heard, and he jumped again, this time the branch he moved away from was covered in something that looked a little like the goop he had been covered in yesterday, although it had a much more gluey look. A second later the yellow goop looked as hard as stone; if he had been caught in that he would have been unable to move without using his real strength.

Once again he had to jump away, this time due to the swarm of kikaichū, which was honing in on him, and the weapons thrown from his attacking students.

As he landed, he didn't even get to catch his breath before he was off again, he heard the sound of a prepped explosion-seal. He felt rather hunted, yet it seemed like his students were guiding him in a certain direction. They had to have something prepared.

While he normally would have broken away from the trap they were leading him toward, he decided to go with the flow. They had already passed the test, by showing overwhelming teamwork, but he was interested in what more they could show him.

A clearing was coming up… maybe that was where they were herding him toward!

Suddenly his body stopped all movement, or rather he had no control of his movements. The stream of kikaichū caught up with him, while his three students had just surrounded him (funnily enough none of them seemed to be using the hand-seal for shadow possession). Suddenly yet another Naruto came out from the surrounding foliage, and while Kakashi could have broken the hold of the shadow possession (he did after all know how to break both the weak beginners version Shikamaru was using, and the much stronger killing version his father was so fond of), he couldn't do that without going over high chunin level.

A kikaichū chewed through the sting he had attached the bells with, and the figure of Naruto caught them in his hand, without ever touching his sensei.

The Naruto who had gathered the bells got to a tree a couple of steps away, and handed them to yet another Naruto, who had just emerged from behind the tree.

From behind another tree came the figure of Shino, grabbing one of the bells, still held within the right hand of the latest Naruto.

He could fell his body moving, and as he was turned around he saw yet again another copy of one of his students, this time Shikamaru, emerge.

Shikamaru released the shadow possession, and in the same moment grabbed Naruto's left hand, where held within was the second bell.

Just as Kakashi prepared to attack, to see how they did in defense, the alarm placed within the starting clearing sounded. They had gotten the bells, all three of them, within the time limit; over scoring all of his expectations of them. And he had thought he would be hindering them by actually appearing at time this morning.

It seemed like his students had been quite capable of planning a takeover, with use of lots of traps, within the allotted time.

He was so proud he actually felt like letting go of a little tear. This team… this team he could work with.

He sent the three genins a happy eye smile, getting three beaming, and proud, grins back… well he thought Shino might be grinning; he gave that kind of feeling, although his face was even more covered up than his own.

"You pass!"

The words brought a cheer from Naruto, a quiet summing from Shino's kikaichū and a huff and eye-roll from Shikamaru. It seemed like he was getting a team of adorable little brats.

…o0O0o…

After having gathered in the starting clearing, with the three training logs and the alarm clock, they were each handed a bento; as they were eating Kakashi, newly named sensei, started to explain.

"Every year three teams are put together; those teams are the most likely in succeeding on getting on the jonin track. Getting put in the genin corps doesn't stop you from becoming jonin, but it definitely makes it more difficult. While the rest of the teams have a chance at succeeding, they will, upon success, become what are known as 'jack of all trade'- teams. The three teams that are most likely to succeed in going on jonin track are not like that.

Your team is specially made for infiltration, assassination and extraction. Your primary job, once you have reached a certain level and finished your basic training, maybe even before that if the situation calls for it, will be to infiltrate enemy strongholds, to assassinate without anyone ever discovering you were there, or at least how you did it, and to extract prisoners."

Naruto interrupted Kakashi, apparently the suspense was too much for him, something to work on; a ninja had to be patient.

"What do the other teams slotted for jonin-track specializes in, Kakashi-sensei?"

Kakashi eyed his orange clad student, just for a second longer than needed for him to know that he should have waited patiently instead of interrupting. Then he answered.

"Team 8 is specialized in information extraction and capture and torture."

The thought of what training in those specializations would do for the personality of the already headstrong, and considering their fixation on Sasuke, slightly psychotic, Ino and Sakura, was rather frightening. At least the training might strengthen Hinata's self-confidence.

"Team 10 is a frontline assault team. They specialize in being stronger, faster and outlasting the enemy in head on battles. There isn't normally all that much use for that kind of teams, and those with those kind of specializations are normally found within the all-purpose teams. But once in a while such teams are made. This time I believe it is due to pandering to the Uchiha, as he seems totally without subtlety from what I have heard."

The degrading tone Kakashi was using to talk about Sasuke made Naruto snort in laughter, while his words made Shino give a short not in agreement and Shikamaru yawn, while waving his hand, as if to say 'get on with it… tell us something we don't know'.

As they finished up their lunch, the three of them were told to meet at the same place again tomorrow, but at a much more reasonable time of 8 am.

Not that it changed Naruto's sleep schedule in any way, as he would still be meeting with Gai and Lee at 4.30 am at the village gates, for a warmup run around the village, followed by going through his katas until he was trained enough for sparing with Lee, which was a long way off.

As Naruto said goodbye to his teammates, and headed for the village proper, as he had yet another lesson with Anko, he thought back on his last lesson with his new sensei in creating masks. It had been really hard, but he had had rather a lot of fun with the end result.

… **FLASHBACK...**

Naruto entered the dango shop in the visage of himself; he really hoped that he wouldn't be thrown out before he had caught the attention of his new sensei in disguises.

As a purple haired, rather skimpy dressed, kunoichi looked up and noticed him, he was also noticed by the owner of the shop.

He was waved over by the woman, but as he set course toward her table, the owner had apparently decided to intercept him.

He knew that he wouldn't be welcome here, but he also knew better than to ignore the unspoken command of his new sensei; Iruka had warned him to do exactly as she told him, as she was known for a rather short temper and sadistic tendencies.

Just as he reached his new sensei, the stall owner had caught up to him.

"What are you doing here monster? You are not welcome here… get out, _get out_!"

The man totally ignored the kunoichi, and reached out; probably to physically remove him from the premise.

His new sensei grabbed his hand; stopping his motion and making a look of trepidation find its home on his face.

"What do you think you are doing to a ninja of Konoha? Hmm? That headband on his brow is an entrance ticket to anywhere in the village… denying him entrance is the same as committing treason…. Now normally I wouldn't care about what one stupid civilian want to do with his life; but you make to good dango to justify just looking on when you commit suicide, so I'm going to give you this warning, just this once mind you, the genin is here to talk to me, so get back to work and keep the dango coming."

The man kept standing there, appearing frozen, for a couple of moments, then he gave a snort, sent Naruto a hateful glare, and turned around; likely to do as he was told, and keep the dango coming.

While he was walking away Naruto could hear his mumbled words. "Treating that thing like its human… would have been better to kill it… no way it's getting any respect from me… might even want me to service the monster…"

Meanwhile his new sensei was waving him down, to sit on the chair in front of her.

"So you are my new minion! You will be calling me Anko-sama… none of that sensei shit! I'm gonna teach you how to become anyone and no one… let you walk into the highest level of security like you belong there, and become just another faceless being in the crowd… but while I do that; your damn well gonna show me the respect I deserve… got it new meat?"

Naruto swallowed thickly (he could believe Iruka's words about he; she was dangerous), and gave her a slightly shaky nod.

"Good. Well first thing first; what do you know about infiltration?"

The answer apparently wasn't up to Anko's satisfaction, as she threw a dango skewer at him, like it was a senbon. Luckily his reflexes were fast enough, or she had just aimed it that way, and he succeeded in avoiding becoming a human pincushion.

"Looks like we will start from the bottom up."

As she ate the last dango on her plate, she got to her feet.

"Follow me!"

As Naruto followed the slightly deranged kunoichi, he thought he better had to explain and excuse why he was so late; she must have waited for over an hour.

"Anko-sama, I'm really sorry that I was so late, but my new jonin-sensei showed up not even 20 minutes ago and…"

"Hold up… I knew that your sensei would be Kakashi-kun, and there is a reason such things as Kakashi-time was named… I actually didn't expect you to show up for another two hours, but apparently Kakashi-kun was looking forward to meeting you brats."

Naruto was looking a little affronted at apparently getting a sensei that always was late, really late according to Anko, but also happy that he had apparently been excited to meet their team. Maybe Kakashi could even become someone he could come to trust and lean on; like Iruka.

Naruto saw that they had come to his part of town, but as they walked pass his apartment building, he looked puzzled at his new master in all thing disguises.

Suddenly she stopped, apparently having reached where she wanted to go. Naruto looked around; they were standing in the middle of the road, to his left was a teahouse, right next to a brothel, and on the right was a butcher and a sushi restaurant. He didn't really know what he was supposed to look for, so he got into a ready position, preparing to be given words of wisdom.

Suddenly he was hit over the head, making him loose his balance slightly.

"Stop attracting attention idiot."

At Naruto's wounded, and confused, look she clarified.

"Body language is everything. When the densities of the district see you standing like that, their first thought will be 'police'. We don't want them to clam up… you are supposed to observe the different people in their natural environment."

She made it sound like some kind of wildlife exorcision, but he tried to take his ques from her, and copied her body language.

"good, that is how you are supposed to hold your body when in uniform, but not at work. It relaxes people, without making you an easy target… now look over there, by the butchers trashcan… do you see that girl? Your job is to follow her, and notice everything about her; how she walks, how she talks, who she talks to and the difference between the different people, all her small habits. I want you to be able to make her believe she have a mirror image when we finish today… but for now; just watch her."

And he watched. For the whole rest of the day he followed her around, and he started to copy all her small habits; the way she would keep on looking around, especially before seeking through someone's trash. The way she would keep her eyes trained on everyone getting close to her, afraid that they would hit her. Even the way she would remove her hair from her face in intervals with her left hand.

When the light faded he even had down pad how she moved; she didn't walk, she scurried over the ground, taking a lot of very small steps, always ready to change her destination.

Just as she once again moved in between two buildings, and he prepared to follow her from the roof, he was stopped by the appearance of his sensei… master.

"Alright… you will now henge into her, and go from here, to where we started. I will be watching you, and for every time you make a mistake, you will be doing 50 push-ups. Plus we won't work on the next target until you have it right."

He performed the henge, disgusting clothing included, but just before he walked out on the street, to start his performance, he caught a sniff of himself; he smelled like ink, ramen and sunshine; nothing like the girl who had smelled like trash and unwashed skin, even from the rooftops where Naruto had been following her.

He looked around, and noticed a trashcan. He went over, and got some of the disgusting trash, which had apparently been sitting within for at least a week, in his hands. He almost threw up when he was painting his clothing and skin with the rotten smelling stuff, but when he was finished he knew; that was at least one mistake that his master wouldn't be pointing out. The henge only covered one sense; sight. His transformation jutsu covered two; sight and touch. He still needed smell and sound.

Smell was something he had just taken care of; but how was he going to sound like the girl. He had heard her talking to one of the other street rats, and her voice was nothing like his. Well nothing for it, he would have to ask Anko if she had a solution to the problem when he was finished… that or find a solution himself.

…o0O0o…

He got 200 push-ups. 3 times because he couldn't keep from talking when he was talked to; and the voice was all wrong, even though he said the right words in the right tone (he had been informed that he would have been marked down extra, had he had a problem with that too), and once because he didn't cover when his eyes met the butchers while he was going through his trash.

When he asked Anko about the voice thing, she told him that they would be training it the next time, and then she had remarked in a sotto voice; that it was a shame that he couldn't just transform his voice box (starting an idea for Naruto, which would in later years make him the undisputed best infiltrator in the leaf's history. He would be able to look like, and sound like, anyone).

… **END FLASHBACK…**

That day's lesson with Anko was a workout. He got taught how to sound breathless, like he had a cold, like a woman, girl, boy, man… he even got taught different animal sounds and how to make noises that sounded like a primed explosion tag, a sniped wire or a drawn sword.

He had never had such a sore throat as he did after that. And Anko said he only had the beginning of voice manipulation down… he almost cried when he heard that; but his throat was just too sore.

…o0O0o…

Even though he had been warned many times, by Iruka, Anko and Gai (although Gai's warning was about his rivals 'hip attitude'), about his new sensei's lateness; he was rather happy to have arrived on time on their first real day as a team. Both because it ended the torture Gai and Lee liked to call training at a reasonable time (if he had let them they would have continued training him until he fainted due to exhaustion), but also because Kakashi was, contraire to all of the warnings he had been given, _on time_.

The successful trap on the first day, combined with Shikamaru's unsaid threat of more if he was ever late again, must have really freaked him out (in truth Kakashi was really looking forward to having a competent team, and the act of voicing out loud that he never wished to lose a team again made him take the training of his team seriously).

The morning started with what Kakashi had doubt as 'light warmup', at the end of which all of the genins were lying flat on their backs, totally out of energy (although the reason for Naruto's exhaustion was primarily that he had been training hard, without any break, since before sunrise, as Kakashi had arrived mere seconds after Naruto, who had been sprinting all out to arrive at time, and started the 'light warmup' almost immediately), followed, after a short break to let them catch their breath, by sparring; first against each other, then all of them against their sensei.

After having trained their body they were instructed in different chakra exercises; meaning Shino and Shikamaru did tree-walking, and Naruto, who had been taught tree-walking by Iruka in the week up to team placement, did water-walking. It resulted in many utterances of troublesome, a rather loud buzzing from Shino's kikaichū and a swearing and throughout soaked Naruto.

After about an hour and a half of chakra exercises; they were finally allowed a lunch break. Of course they weren't allowed to be lazy even then; no they were expected to play different strategy games while eating lunch.

Once the lengthy lunch 'break' was over, they were informed that they would be starting their first mission today.

Even though Naruto, and his teammates, had been informed that the D-rank missions were rather boring, and hardly more than chores, they hadn't expected them to be actual chores. The devastated air around them, upon being informed that their first mission as ninja's would be to paint a fence, made Kakashi smile in accomplishment and the Hokage hide a grin of hilarity; he always handed out the D-rank missions (and Danzo called him an overly compassionated fool… what a naïve man).

When his team had wallowed for a while in their misery over getting chores as missions, and they had left the Hokage tower; Kakashi turned serious. His team immediately noticed the changed air, and turned their attention toward him.

"Okay team; enough fun. How will you complete the mission without the client getting hindered in his actions, and keeping it secret from the targets wife, for whom the restoration of the fence is a surprise? Remember that the target will be spending time inside the house and in the garden, and might even leave the premise."

At first his team looked weirdly at him, and then they lighted up, one after the other. It might not be the most exiting mission, but it was a decent training exercise; one they were getting payed for completing. Maybe the whole D-rank mission thing wouldn't be all that bad; if their Sensei continued turning them into training exercises.

The three genins grouped together, trying to come up with a suggestion for their teacher; he wanted them to treat it like a mission, and by now they had figured out that a plan with elements from all of them, would work much better than any one of them could come up with on their own. They each had their own strength, and even though they knew each other rather well, they didn't yet know all the abilities of each other.

Shino and Shikamaru was the most surprised by their teammates hidden abilities; it seemed like playing pranks was rather developing in ninja skills… at least playing pranks on paranoid jonins and ANBU was.

When they had finished their little conference, they were nearing the clients home, and they had come up with plans; both A, B, C and D plans, should the first one not work, and taking into account; the different places the target could be and would move to.

They turned toward their sensei as one, and Shino started explaining, as Naruto was busy going over the data of the villager (who was their target)'s information. He had a rather comprehensive mental library of most of the villagers normal schedules and entourages, it was needed if he wanted to go undiscovered when he did his pranks (and no matter what most people thought, it was only the big and showy once he ever got caught in).

Shikamaru was far too lazy to care about being the one who relayed their plan, so happily left the work to Shino.

"Our primary plan is as following: Naruto-san will be sending in a clone, which will be disguised through the henge as one of the target's associates. The clone will then distract the target from leaving the house, making it possible for us to work on the fence. Meanwhile we will be moving underneath the fence, so not to be seen from inside the house. The inside of the fence will be painted by my Kikaichū, making the work both faster, and more easily disguised. The fence will be covered in a genjutsu, made by Shikamaru-san while we paint it, so that it will appear unchanged while we are working, in the event that the target looks out the window while the inside of the fence are being painted. Why is the plan only the primary? It is because changes in the targets routine or other unforeseen circumstances could force us to use one of our lesser plans, either from the beginning or when the deviation happens!"

Kakashi didn't even blink at the nitpicking of his cute little student, and just gave them a nod.

"I only have one question; what would you have done if none of you knew anything about the target?"

There was a short break, where the genins changed looks; then, finally, Shikamaru spoke up.

"Troublesome… then we would have spied on the target first, or hit them with a genjutsu…" then mumbled, though seemingly wanting to be overheard. "We really need to learn some more genjutsus, or just about any jutsu!"

Kakashi eye-smiled proudly at his little genins, and gave them another nod of approval.

"Let's see if your plan works… that is the positive about D-rank missions. If you fail in your objective; no one dies."

The team, or at least Naruto, gulped at the unsaid words of their sensei; if they failed in any of the higher ranked missions, it could mean death; either for them or their client.

They decided to take every mission seriously, no matter if Kakashi made them a secondary objective (like painting the fence without getting discovered), or if it was just the boring D-rank mission given from the mission office.

It was important to not get bad habits.

As they came to the right street; Naruto made a clone, and made it henge into one of the old ladies the target would often invite over for tea; to gossip with. He just hoped that the gossip he had overheard from Ino would be useful.

He made himself a promise; he would use more energy on committing gossip, both spoken, and what he saw happening, to his memory. You never knew when it would come in handy; like now.

The henged clone went to the door, knocked, and after a hug in the doorway, and some of those weird wind-kisses by the cheek that some women do, it was let in, with an offer of coffee and just out of the oven biscuits.

First objective complete, they turned toward the fence. Shikamaru sitting down on the outside of the fence (he needed his full attention on the genjutsu; it was knew and he wasn't very good at it yet), Shino releasing his Kikaichū to paint the inside of the fence with the henged clones of Naruto working as small paint brushes (he had never imagined _that_ use for his deadly beetles, but he couldn't deny that Naruto's suggestion had merit), he himself getting ready to help Naruto with the outside.

Meanwhile Naruto was producing a staggering amount of clones; some of them henged, some of them ready to help with painting the outside of the fence. And off they went.

The work, which was slated to be a half day job for a normal genin team, was finished within an hour. As Naruto dismissed his clones, and Shino woke Shikamaru from the trance he had gone into to be able to fully consentrate on the genjutsu, the clone henged as one of the targets gossip friends got ready to leave. It was with an exuse of having to do some shopping that the clone finally got out of the house. When the door opened the three genins, and their jonin-sensei, stood ready to receive praise for a work well done.

It was not so.

Upon seeing someone she saw as a demon, and the killer of her first husband, the target (the wife of the client) grabbed a broom and started to hunt Naruto around the fenced in garden with it.

His team was staring open mouthed at the riot, not quite knowing what they were supposed to do, but, upon hearing her call him a demon, Kakashi finally broke the chase.

"Ma'me we would like to report the mission complete… I hope you have no problem with a ninja of the leaf… if there is a problem we would be delighted to help you to the Hokage to give your complaint."

Their sensei was standing with his back against them, but there must have been something in his eye, as the woman turned white, and shock her head heartedly. Then she apparently came to her senses.

"Mission? What do you… oh." She had finally noticed the painted fence. Suddenly she was all smiles, although she pretended like Naruto wasn't there.

After her signing the mission scroll they left the, according to Shikamaru, clearly deranged woman (the clone having long since cleared the premise, having popped when it turned the corner of the street).

"Mission complete; the fence of the Shawada's has been painted."

They were standing in the mission office, in front of the Hokage, with Kakashi giving his rapport on their first mission.

Apparently it was much easier than he had said… but at least it was good training.

The Hokage looked surprised; they had taken a fraction of the time allotted to the mission. Then his eyes fell on Naruto, and he got an understanding smile on his face; shadow clones.

They were handed their mission pay; hardly more than a week's allowance for Shikamaru and Shino, but important to Naruto, as he was no longer legible for the orphan allowance, as he now was a ninja, and there for a part of the working forces.

They bowed in thanks, and left the office. They wouldn't be taking anymore missions, and wouldn't be having anymore team training for the day. That is not to say that that day's work would be over, as Shino and Shikamaru still had clan training, and Naruto… Naruto would use the remainder of the day being tortu… trained by Anko in how to make the perfect disguise as a street rat.

He would use his evening on reading medical files and eating the leftovers Iruka had left from the dinner he made him yesterday. Soon he would be able to transform his voice box when he donned a disguise.


End file.
